In that letter the person's primary concern seems to be circulating around the glitches and bugs of CPA Exam software. I can completely understand what he went through because I faced the same situation for my exam. The old calculator program didn't work at all. I informed the same to Prometric staff member who reported the bug to NASBA right before me.
After coming home, I immediately emailed NASBA with details and also called them the following day. My exam was scheduled in the evening, the time when we are only received by answering machines. It took me two hours on phone to effectively communicate with the right person. My call was forwarded from one person to other and I waited online for hours..
Why don't they publish a phone number on NTS to contact them in times of need? Why don't they have some direct service for student's exam related grievance? I left a voice message and they are supposed to call back which never happened.
I was worried and called my cousin to discuss about this problem. He told me about a similar experience and assured me that Prometric records our entire exam audio & video which we can be accessed and verified, in case of any conflict. So he said ,'We have proof, don't worry'.
I waited for any kind of response for a week or more.. A long awaited email confirmed that I really had a problem. Later an official from NASBA called me to ask if I was interested in sitting for the exam again or go ahead with the current exam and wait for the result. She said, 'What ever your decision is, email us back'. She didn't even give me a chance to ask any question or to talk. She hung up on me. I felt so bad back then. Well that's how our officials treat us.
Coming back to our main topic on the person who quit the exam because he was annoyyed with our computer based exam, I don't know what will ease him to continue his journey? May be a test like our DMV office's driving license test which is conducted both on paper and online, will make him happy? Then probably we will get a booklet of questions with an OMR sheet to darken the right answer with a pencil. May be he feels better to write his written communication with his pen. Or... we can inform him that we only have written communication now in BEC Exam.
We take th exam online and wait for months to get the result. I can't imagine how many months it will take to evaluate that hand written essay and screen OMR sheets? I have only one thing to tell him..Bro..fighting against a system is not that easy.. and we cannot stop people to use the benefits of technology. I definitely agree every system got its own benefits and weaknesses.. But still if you want to become a CPA, no one else makes you one other than AICPA. That doesn't make it an unquestionable Monarch. So please blurt out your grievances online but don't quit. Complaining itself explains the theory that you are not quitting. I don't know why are you still complaining and quitting? So complain and become a better CPA and bring better changes in the future exam. And last but not the least, I agree that being responsible is a big duty and representing a profession and trying to bring the best into the profession is full of controversies which they face all the time. So they have their end of problems.
Complaints on Prometic are never ending, we hear them all the time. I addressed my concern in last post, which was really bizarre, a staff member telling me to puke beside me and there is nothing they can do except cleaning it later. What will that conclude? Students, if you have an emergency go ahead and do it while you are giving your exam, Prometic will clean up later.
While I was inside the computer lab, I don't have any outside access or I had nothing with me, They record everything. So keeping a dustbin beside me which they bring it themselves will not let me do anything that can compromise their security. I am not asking them to act beyond their rules, but being a big test provider, Prometric should have some methods to proceed in special situations. I don't know whether I was scared to embarrass myself or it's just God's grace I didn't throw up in the computer lab. Otherwise all the exam givers might have cursed me for the rest of their lives and some may blame me in future for failing in their exams.
My special thanks to Adrienne Gonzalez and CPANet for always staying behind students irrespective of what ever they face .. Students go ahead and blurt-out your problems but never quit.
Happy to help!
ReplyDeleteCPAnet
Great post, Rose.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I didn't get about his letter... He apparently quit YEARS ago, why reach out now? Either he gave up or he didn't.
My experience has been that if someone decides to pursue their CPA and, for whatever reason (life, money, drama, whatever) gives up on their goal, they almost ALWAYS return to it. I dealt with students who gave up TWENTY YEARS AGO and never truly gave up because always in the back of their mind they knew that this was something they really wanted.
I can totally understand his frustrations and, as you pointed out, glitches are nothing new but do you see me giving up Starbucks just because the dumb cashier accidentally rang me up for a double instead of a single? No, that's life.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go read this puke story of yours. And probably repost on Going Concern if you don't mind haha.
Keep up the good work!!
Thanks a lot Adrienne, You are welcome to address our problems on Going concern...
ReplyDeleteIt's a terrible thing to experience bad service from their providers. Bad as it is, there is nothing worse than a quitter who leaves the battle ground just because he was dissatisfied about something. Personality counts.
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